Invention:
Researchers at the University of Arizona have developed systems and methods for estimating gamma ray positions that are faster, more accurate, and more computationally and memory-use efficient than known systems and methods used in the medical imaging field.
Background:
Scintillator-based detectors have been extensively used in both clinical and pre-clinical SPECT and PET scanners, due to their relatively low cost, high gamma-ray stopping power and fast timing. Position-estimation algorithms or decoding methods are applied for gamma-ray interaction position localization with signals induced by scintillation photons on light sensors (PMTs, SiPMs, etc.). Many gamma-ray position estimation/decoding algorithms based on reference datasets have been proposed because they provide better positioning capability for gamma-ray interactions especially at detector edges and corners, and also filter out events that Compton scatter and deposit energy in multiple positions in the detector. But reference-data-based methods need detector calibration to acquire their reference datasets, and the position estimation speed remains relatively slow due to the excessive computations required. Thus, the current need for position estimation is for both high levels of accuracy and efficiency.
Advantages:
- Faster
- More accurate position estimation
- Can be used with detectors with complicated mean-detector-response functions
Applications:
- Gamma ray imaging
- Other medical imaging
